This post was created in partnership with GumGum
Key takeaways
- Contextual targeting outperforms demographics for consumer relevance.
- Match media placements to real-time consumer moments.
- Data and AI enable lightning-fast creative pivots.
Relevance and fresh context are now baseline in digital advertising, and ad-weary consumers decide which messages earn their attention.
During an VmeetsolutionsHouse Cannes Lions Group Chat co-hosted with GumGum, industry leaders unpacked how contextual signals can outperform behavioral and demographic targeting to restore trust and drive performance.
Consumer mindset over demographics
Ads that chase you for weeks-what Mario Mijares, VP of marketing insights, loyalty, and monetization platforms at 7-Eleven calls “marketing vomit”-are the opposite of relevance.
Panelists agreed that effective targeting begins with what a person is doing in the moment, not who they are on paper.
Lisa Pillette, former Global CMO of Fossil Group, Casper, and Lacoste, relies on context at the very top of the funnel. She explained, “We found contextual targeting useful in new customer acquisition and inspiring customers at a research phase for considered purchase.”
But it can’t be done without the right technology. Kerel Cooper, CMO of GumGum, shared how their platform “can understand the entire article someone is reading to put it in its proper context. We understand what someone is listening to. Based on that, we can say, ‘let’s deliver this ad with this message.'”
Katie Streeter Hurle, chief strategy officer at SMG, illustrated the precision that contextual targeting unlocks. “You target someone at 4 p.m. on the way home from work to go and pick up a bottle of wine and some food for that evening. Or use weather-based targeting. Ice cream’s a perfect example.” The warmer it is, the more ice cream products sell.
Summing up the north star of contextual targeting, Cooper said, “We believe there’s a world where we can move beyond demographic information to help brands connect with who they want to connect with and provide a great experience for them.”
Media environments that match the moment
Contextually rich placements feel additive, not intrusive. Kristen DiCorleto, head of marketing at CVS Media Exchange, discussed using first-party signals to amplify the moment in a new partnership with Reddit.
“We’re taking our 90 million addressable users and their 160 million Redditors, matching that data in clean rooms, then using contextual relevance in those community conversations to deliver the right content from our brand partners.”
For travel media, Jennifer Andre, VP of media and sales at Expedia, explained how that principle plays out when intent surfaces in real time. “If somebody’s searching for a flight to Nice, “Airline X” wants to fill seats going into Nice. It’s going to have a much more effective campaign if it’s using that real-time data vs. just targeting somebody who may eventually travel,” she said.
And for retailers like 7-Eleven, timing is everything. Mijares shared that his team “doubles down on in-store audio because we need to get the consumer fast” in order to capture energy-drink buyers.
“The majority of energy drinks are sold between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.,” he explained. “We were running an ad on the in-store radio all day, and when we analyzed performance, there was zero uplift in that morning window because the customer was already going to buy.”
Digging into store-level data, Mijares found an unexpected sweet spot: “All the lift came between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., about a 15% to 20% uplift.” His team pulled budget out of the 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. rush and redeployed it to the midday “pick-me-up” window, pairing new creative with that mood.
Pillette runs on an equally fast feedback loop. Her team watches what audiences are doing, “gets feedback within 48 hours, and turns around the creative within a day,” she said. Speed, not scale, is now the competitive edge.
Still, real-time retargeting only works when the message evolves with the moment. “Remarketing is effective when it’s recent,” noted New York Life CMO Amy Hu. “The hard part is collecting data in real time so that, when you do retarget, the creative is contextually relevant.”
Data + AI = continual training
Mike Nuzzo, SVP and head of data at Hearst Magazines, laid out the tech stack to keep relevance high. “Proprietary taxonomy lets you understand the context of the content; then you add behavioral signals, what people are doing holistically, and an AI that adapts and learns. When you do those three things, you actually find unexpected connections.”
That human edge is where many brands stumble. DiCorleto admitted dynamic-creative tools haven’t caught up: “We joke we’re doing the D and the C in DCO, but not the O.” Until AI can refresh visuals as quickly as it updates targeting, creative remains the bottleneck.
Nuzzo reminded the group that data alone can’t forge a connection: “People don’t respond to data like we think they do. They respond to relevance and resonance. … We’re still human at the core and intelligent around the edges.”
Featured Conversation Leaders
- Jennifer Andre, VP, Media and Sales, Expedia Travel Media Network, Expedia Group
- Kerel Cooper, CMO, GumGum
- Kristen DiCorleto, Head of Marketing, CVS Media Exchange
- Amy Hu, SVP, CMO, New York Life
- Katie Streeter Hurle, Chief Strategy Officer, SMG
- Ryan Joe, Editor-in-Chief, Vmeetsolutions
- Mario Mijares, VP, Marketing Insights, Loyalty and Monetization Platforms, 7-Eleven
- Mike Nuzzo, SVP and Head of Data, Hearst Magazines
- Lisa Pillette, Global CMO, formerly of Fossil, Casper, Lacoste